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Monday, September 18, 2006

...Sister Leonella was shot in the back four times by pistol-wielding attackers as she left the Austrian-run S.O.S. hospital. Her bodyguard also was slain. The two had been walking the 10 meters (30 feet) from the Mogadishu hospital to the sister's home, where three other nuns were waiting to have lunch with her. "The gunmen specifically targeted her," Huber said. "They were waiting for her. As she crossed the road they opened fire. We had no warning of this." Sister Leonella, whose birth name was Rosa Sgorbati, had lived and worked in Kenya and Somalia for 38 years, her family said.

Sister Leonella, 65, muttered the words 'I forgive, I forgive' in Italian after being targeted by gunmen in an apparent execution-style killing, Father Maloba Wesonga told The Associated Press at the nun's memorial mass in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Monday.

I forgive, I forgive ... and for those words, dear Sister, you very likely sit at the feet of the Lord.